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MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION:
I want to buy my gas from companies that don't import from the Middle East. Which ones are they?
Answer: There are essentially NO major-brand retail gas stations whose product derives from US sources only, and basically all of them have Middle East oil as a significant proportion of their source crude - because if refineries used only American oil, they would be incapable of making the volumes that we demand - a 60% shortfall. A few small regional refiner-producers may use MOSTLY American oil, but even they likely use purchased oil - with imported origins - to produce the volumes of gasoline that are demanded by the American public. In addition to all the crude imported, the U.S. must import about 66 million gallons of refined gasoline because our refineries can't make enough

Most frequent question #2: How many gallons of gasoline in a barrel of oil? Answer: a 42-gallon barrel of oil makes about 19.5 gallons of gasoline.

U.S. gasoline consumption of 320,500,000 gallons per day (March 2005) works out to about 3700 gallons per second.

Oil Refineries
The following information on active oil refineries comes from the Energy Information Administration. Total in the US is 149 refineries. For more specifics, such as refinery owner and capacity of individual refineries, go to This Page, click on a state, and then click on "petroleum overview" on the state page. The list is in order of total capacity in 2005. States not listed, such as New York, Florida, and Arizona, do not have any refineries. EIA Information on individual refineries.
Oil refining company quiz
---------------------------------------------------------------US total refining capacity = 17,125,000 barrels of oil per day.
Of this, 19.5 gallons per barrel, or about 44% (the most that can be made) becomes gasoline: 7,535,000 barrels of gasoline, times 42 gallons per barrel = 316,470,000 gallons of gasoline capable of being refined each day. Although most refineries are operating at near capacity (say 95% to 98% of capacity), any shutdown (hurricane or otherwise) obviously affects this total. In March 2005, US gasoline consumption was 320,500,000 gallons per day. You do the math.

UPDATE: According to this EIA page, US gasoline consumption in 2004 averaged 382,400,000 gallons per day - meaning we must import almost 66 million gallons of gasoline each and every day, in addition to imported crude oil.